Like I said, my coach suggested I do in on my rest days to develop flexibility for Olympic lifting. So it would be purely for those purposes. So far I'm still doing the light yoga from a book I found in the mornings, adding Olympic-lifting specific stretches (like for my ankles) and will probably go to a class or two to get a feel for it.

I find that i like to focus on problem areas, and this may help you since you have identified one. i've gone through a bunch of dvd's and what not, but sometimes i really don't want to sit down and crank out a whole yoga session. instead i generally have 3 or 4 poses that i feel i'm having trouble with. i'll typically hit those several times throughout the day - basically greasing the groove without really thinking of it as that.

this tends to help a lot because it's an easy way to take breaks from work/school work.
for example, i do work for an hour, stop and cycle between pigeon, king pigeon, and plough pose a few times, then i work again. takes about 10 minutes, and i'll do it maybe 3-4 times a day. i'll stick to these few stretches for about 2-3 weeks and switch it up.

i feel that it's almost like building up skill in any other lift. it takes a while to figure out what the real goal is in some stretches, such as what should feel tension, what should squeeze, and what should relax.

of course, i'll do a more thorough set of stretching/joint mobility to warm up/cooldown from physical endeavors, but the previous discussion was simply referring to outside of workout/grappling

Last edited by Grissim Connery; 11-17-2008 at 04:12 PM.
Reason: needed a bit more

...if you could be specific about routines that would be great. Without structure I'll either do barely anything or go overboard and do everything and then get sick of spending hours on stretching or whatever and end up doing nothing again.)

I can email you a very short 11 stretch routine of AIS stretches you can do in less than 5 minutes that will address basic hip, shoulder and neck flexibility. Then let's address any specific areas of tightness we need to add work for. Still keep it short, but hit everything important without wasting time and effort.

Yoga's fine if you enjoy it, but it can be a big time waster. AIS is much more specific and easier to adapt to busy schedules. Yoga was created by people who obviously didn't have wristwatches and thus the time component is much looser.

I can email you a very short 11 stretch routine of AIS stretches you can do in less than 5 minutes that will address basic hip, shoulder and neck flexibility. Then let's address any specific areas of tightness we need to add work for. Still keep it short, but hit everything important without wasting time and effort.

Yoga's fine if you enjoy it, but it can be a big time waster. AIS is much more specific and easier to adapt to busy schedules. Yoga was created by people who obviously didn't have wristwatches and thus the time component is much looser.

Ben,
I have the "Wharton's Stretch Book" another book on AIS stretching. Are you familiar with it and is the Matte's method any different or have much different material?

You also make a good point about how time consuming yoga is and if you could get the same benefits from a 15 minute stretch routine why do 30 - 45 minutes of yoga.

Ben,
I have the "Wharton's Stretch Book" another book on AIS stretching. Are you familiar with it and is the Matte's method any different or have much different material?

You also make a good point about how time consuming yoga is and if you could get the same benefits from a 15 minute stretch routine why do 30 - 45 minutes of yoga.

The Wharton's book is an inferior explanation of the Mattes Method. The illustrations are poor and the explanations incomplete. I own a copy but am quite dissatisfied with it.

The Mattes book is more in depth and complete. It is technically dense. A good working knowledge of conversational kinesiotherapist is recommended.

The complete head to toe Mattes Method takes about three hours. So, I just pick and choose what I feel I have time for and need most and do that each day depending on my schedule, usually 3-15 minutes.

The Wharton's book is an inferior explanation of the Mattes Method. The illustrations are poor and the explanations incomplete. I own a copy but am quite dissatisfied with it.

Those were my initial thoughts of the Wharton's book. Not sure why it is so popular. I guess because there are not a whole lot of competing AIS books out there.

Let me add, I also thought it was very amusing they have this elaborate section in the back of the book about sport specific stretching which I thought was a joke and a bunch of fluff. The book is basically divided into approx 5 stretch routines for each part of body, i.e. legs, neck, shoulders, arms. So the idea behind the sport specific section is you pick a sport like football and they tell you to do section 1,3 and 5 for example. The silly part was that for 95% of the sports listed in the back of the book, the answer was to complete sections 1,2,3,4, and 5, or in other words just do the whole book. Which didn't really add much value to the text.

Exactly. They did the same thing with Mattes' Active Isolated Strengthening book. Get the originals.

No wonder I always see copies of Wharton's at the Half price book store, which is where I bought my copy at. I also see Barnes and Noble still carries it on there shelf. The other book I was considering adding to my library was Pavel's "Relax into Stretch". Any experience with that book....If i had to choose one...

No wonder I always see copies of Wharton's at the Half price book store, which is where I bought my copy at. I also see Barnes and Noble still carries it on there shelf. The other book I was considering adding to my library was Pavel's "Relax into Stretch". Any experience with that book....If i had to choose one...

Haven't checked out Pavel.

One choice? I'd have to go with Mattes. He's spent 40 years almost exclusively on stretching and remedial strength work and is very, very good at it. Interned for 6 weeks at his clinic and saw some amazing results.